A Wraith lets his mind wander
by Sir Cracken
Summary: A look inside the mind of the tortured soul with a bell and skull.


Philip was not a patient individual. At least he wasn't anymore. Despite the connotations that come to mind when one thinks of the word "hunter" Philip only fit its primary definition.

He, the hunter, did seek out others, prey, for the sole purpose of having them skewered on conveniently placed metal hooks, for what would be considered his hunt. However, he did not like waiting or planning in advance.

His fear of the thing that lurked, with its unnatural appendages, in the corner of his eye, or jittering behind his back whenever he hesitated, was enough to warrant haste.

The only thing that irked Philip more than idleness was punishment.

And so, when the time did come that the square machines, not unlike the car engines Philip used to work with, started sputtering in his absence, he would always be ready to find whatever miscreant had laid their repulsive hands, always bare and clean, over it. Hands which were seldom seen tainted by the filth gathering around the wreckages. Most likely to prevent delays when repairing the machines necessary for their owners' escape.

Philip saw no reason for this. The bark, charcoal and other identifiable substances that coated his hide were a shield against the eye-bleeding lights that occasionally shone upon him. A flimsy shield admittedly, but anything that could numb the burning was more than enough to be taken upon his body. And yet they, who were fighting, running and hiding in a desperate effort to turn them on, never once protected themselves against the rays that were emitted from the machines.

Perhaps they were ignorant of the threat? Many a time had they ignored the shimmering besides them, and many more times the shimmering lurking around their crying kin. Philip assumed their intelligence and likenesses were akin to those of sheep. Stupid and blundering, he held nothing but contempt for them, and dashed their heads against the skull, that he was so fond of hitting them with, out of as much fear as anger.

And as he did so they whimpered, cried and eventually perished. Their empty likeness soaring towards the sky, getting bleaker and bleaker with each consumed soul. Philip was satisfied with this.

But an uncountable amount of sacrifices later...Philip wasn't. He was sad.

What sparked this sadness was undetermined. Maybe he thought that he would be let go after enough of the "sheep" had been impaled. Maybe he was tired of chasing them around pointlessly placed objects, listening to their cries of pain echo helplessly around his ears as he knocked them onto the floor. Or maybe, he had finally come to the conclusion that, if they were just mindless sheep, then he was just a mindless wolf.

Whatever the reason, he decreased his efforts during the next couple of hunts. He would prowl half-heartedly, pursue without passion, and cared little if he caught anyone or not. They looked at him over their shoulders, puzzlingly, as they ran back to the fire that Philip was unable to follow.

As expected when he failed a hunt, the burning began. It started off slow, like a heated oven, then increased like a supernova. His skin was boiled before his eyes, and his bones scorched to a deep black. The skull in his hands starting laughing.

But Philip had experienced this before. He remained silent and suffering throughout the whole ordeal. Unable to produce tears he simply looked at his burning body and thought, without care. His body was numb compared to his heart. The former was cauterised but the latter was bleeding.

He would never again feel the sun.  
He would never again feel the wind.  
He would never again feel the sea.  
He knew that all he could feel now...was the burning.

Then it stopped.

Confused, Philip checked himself. It was all an illusion.  
His body was scarred yes, but it was of his own doing. There were no blisters or burns upon it, merely mud. His arms and legs were filthy, but functional. He looked at the skull in his hands, utterly silent, and felt disgusted by it. How long had he remained in this state? Weeks, months, years? The passage of time had escaped him. But despite all of the lives he took and blood he shed Philip could not escape his humanity.

He relaxed his posture and sat down. The skull that he had never let out of his sight was thrown over his shoulder, and the bell was cradled in his arms. He tapped it lightly and listened to the minor echo it gave off, before closing his eyes and trying to think of what to do next. He was trapped here, but his mind was finally becoming free.

Would he have regained part of his sanity, if he stayed like this? Possibly. The mind is a malleable device. It requires only an experienced mechanic to know how to properly control it... or contort it.  
In Philip's case he didn't get a visit from a mechanic. He got a Doctor.

* * *

Herman Carter is a patient individual. His deep knowledge of the sciences, and his unerring mind, were the reasons for this. If there was something that could be seen, heard, and felt, it could be understood. The only uncertainty factor was time.

But now, awaiting the traitor who was to be brought before him, time was of no concern. Carter knew for a fact that no mind was indefensible, murderer or not, and the whispers had confirmed to him just how fragile the mind of the traitor was.

The only thing that Carter loved more than punishing patients, was punishing traitors.

His hands tightened, his eyes somehow widened, and the excitement building up inside him was like a pressure cooker. Sparks started to fly around him and the ceiling lights flickered with anticipation. His mind was as sharp as his instrument, and the only thing the former was occupied with was the hundreds of ways it could torment the traitor when it finally arrived.

And it did.  
Carter watched on from the observation area as the traitor sprawled onto the floor. It looked up at the spiked appendages that had dropped it, as they disappeared into the ceiling, then at its new surroundings.

The traitor got to its feet and winced at the flickering lights. All it had in hand was an old bell.

Carter, ever patient, stood perfectly still, confident that the lights would mask his appearance long enough for the madness to kick in.

The traitor noticed the sparks at its feet, and walked around aimlessly, still bewildered at where it had been taken.

The sparks suddenly jumped from the traitor's feet to its legs, and it gave out a shrill, ear-piecing cry as its mind was hit by the first of Carter's assaults.

He looked for a few seconds more, as the apparitions appeared around the traitor, before descending down the stairs to the ground level.

By the time he got down, the traitor was already backed into a corner, terrified, and the wide-eyed hallucinations took turns emitting high pitched laughs before instantaneously changing positions.

At last the traitor was within arms reach. But still, Carter waited, now confused for one of the hallucinations by the traitor. He waited for the moment when he would be spotted.

And when he was spotted, he struck.

Lethal amounts of electricity surged through the traitor's arm as Carter grabbed hold of it. The screaming was equal to the flashing, and the traitor's mind became a conductor for the terrible implications contained within Carter's sparks.

The traitor frantically swung its bell at Carter, hitting him square in the jaw, and it was then Carter's turn to have his senses momentarily taken from him.

The ringing lasted for a minute, but his field of view was quickly restored when he picked himself up from the ground and felt his chin.  
The traitor was nowhere to found. This had not deterred Carter, for he merely needed to expose to the traitor to a few more volts before its mind would be taken permanently.

As he held his left hand out with the intention of letting loose another set of sparks, a loud bell was heard behind him, and as Carter turned towards the noise, he received another blow to the head. This one didn't stagger him, and Carter retaliated by swinging his metal rod in return.

The traitor caught the rod before it connected with its chest. The blood started to flow from its hand as the spikes imbedded themselves deep in its palm. Carter took advantage of the traitor's obvious pain, by twisting the rod, further rending the traitor's flesh as their eyes and the floor were littered with red.

Fuelled by the pain, the traitor firmly knocked the rod out of its wound with the bell. It dematerialised with the bell's toll, and Carter held up his rod in a defensive stance as he watched for movement.

The air in front of him was shimmering, though the blows Carter had taken to the head made it difficult to discern where, exactly.

He put his left hand behind his pack and slowly began collecting volts as he circled the seemingly empty room. In a flash, he zapped the ground, and the outline of the traitor, as well as their scream, made it easy to deliver a swift blow to their chest.

The traitor involuntarily bent forward, and was then kicked in the head, sending them firmly against the wall.

Carter rapidly closed the distance and, with his rod, held the traitor's bell against the wall. Once again Carter readied his left hand.

And then something curious occurred. The traitor did not scream but instead spoke, in a raspy, clogged voice. "Why?"

Carter was astonished.

"Why?" He replied, in his own high-pitched voice.

"Why...why?" He repeated sarcastically, his astonishment quickly turning to ire.

"Why...WHY ARE YOU STILL BREATHING?! YOU IMBECILE!"

He squeezed the traitor's neck as hard as he could, transferring enough electricity to make the lights above burst and the traitor's mind finally burst with them. The traitor broke free of Carter's grip and pummelled him into floor.

But Carter didn't wince, he laughed.

He had completely overwhelmed the traitor's cerebrum. Any blows he received now would not be from the traitor, but from a rabid animal inside the traitor's shell of a body, unable to communicate, only kill.

Carter was hit again and again, his laughter becoming even more maniacal, until consciousness was about to fail him. But, before that happened, a familiar set of appendages wrapped around the beast that was holding him down, and started dragging it into a newly created void in the floor.

The beast screamed and fought the entire way, until only its arms, head and torso were what remained outside the yawning void.

Carter got up and grinned the widest smile that he had ever grinned, his eyes meeting the beast's furious gaze with unspoken but obvious enjoyment. He then kicked the beast square in the jaw, and it was finally pulled into the darkness, howling.

The portal disappeared and Carter walked calmly back to his office. He cared little for the wounds he had mounted as there wasn't any risk of infections in this place. Once there, he sat down and put his rod, still dripping with blood, on the desk beside him.

Carter put his hands on the armrest, and carelessly put his feet up on his desk. He quietly chuckled to himself about the recent incident for a minute or two, then put his feet down and picked up one of his research papers.

He began to let his thoughts wander.


End file.
